The Prelude
By
William Wordsworth
Book 14:
Conclusion

In one of those excursions (may they ne'erFade from remembrance!) through the Northern tractsOf Cambria ranging with a youthful friend, I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time,And westward took my way, to see the sunRise from the top of Snowdon. To the doorOf a rude cottage at the mountain's baseWe came, and roused the shepherd who attendsThe adventurous stranger's steps, a trusty guide;Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth.

It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night,Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fogLow-hung and thick that covered all the sky;But, undiscouraged, we began to climbThe mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round,And, after ordinary travellers' talkWith our conductor, pensively we sankEach into commerce with his private thoughts:Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myselfWas nothing either seen or heard that checkedThose musings or diverted, save that onceThe shepherd's lurcher, who, among the crags,Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teasedHis coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent.This small adventure, for even such it seemedIn that wild place and at the dead of night,Being over and forgotten, on we woundIn silence as before. With forehead bentEarthward, as if in opposition setAgainst an enemy, I panted upWith eager pace, and no less eager thoughts.Thus might we wear a midnight hour away,Ascending at loose distance each from each,And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band;When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten,And with a step or two seemed brighter still;Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause,For instantly a light upon the turfFell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up,The Moon hung naked in a firmamentOf azure without cloud, and at my feetRested a silent sea of hoary mist.A hundred hills their dusky backs upheavedAll over this still ocean; and beyond,Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched,In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,Into the main Atlantic, that appearedTo dwindle, and give up his majesty,Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment noneWas there, nor loss; only the inferior starsHad disappeared, or shed a fainter lightIn the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon,Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazedUpon the billowy ocean, as it layAll meek and silent, save that through a rift —Not distant from the shore whereon we stood,A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place —Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streamsInnumerable, roaring with one voice!Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour,For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.

When into air had partially dissolvedThat vision, given to spirits of the nightAnd three chance human wanderers, in calm thoughtReflected, it appeared to me the typeOf a majestic intellect, its actsAnd its possessions, what it has and craves,What in itself it is, and would become.There I beheld the emblem of a mindThat feeds upon infinity, that broodsOver the dark abyss, intent to hearIts voices issuing forth to silent lightIn one continuous stream; a mind sustainedBy recognitions of transcendent power,In sense conducting to ideal form,In soul of more than mortal privilege.One function, above all, of such a mindHad Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,'Mid circumstances awful and sublime,That mutual domination which she lovesTo exert upon the face of outward things,So moulded, joined, abstracted, so endowedWith interchangeable supremacy,That men, least sensitive, see, hear, perceive,And cannot choose but feel. The power, which allAcknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thusTo bodily sense exhibits, is the expressResemblance of that glorious facultyThat higher minds bear with them as their own.This is the very spirit in which they dealWith the whole compass of the universe:They from their native selves can send abroadKindred mutations; for themselves createA like existence; and, whene'er it dawnsCreated for them, catch it, or are caughtBy its inevitable mastery,Like angels stopped upon the wind by soundOf harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.Them the enduring and the transient bothServe to exalt; they build up greatest thingsFrom least suggestions; ever on the watch,Willing to work and to be wrought upon,They need not extraordinary callsTo rouse them; in a world of life they live,By sensible impressions not enthralled,But by their quickening impulse made more promptTo hold fit converse with the spiritual world,And with the generations of mankindSpread over time, past, present, and to come,Age after age, till Time shall be no more.Such minds are truly from the Deity,For they are Powers; and hence the highest blissThat flesh can know is theirs — the consciousnessOf Whom they are, habitually infusedThrough every image and through every thought,And all affections by communion raisedFrom earth to heaven, from human to divine;Hence endless occupation for the Soul,Whether discursive or intuitive; Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life,Emotions which best foresight need not fear,Most worthy then of trust when most intenseHence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crushOur hearts — if here the words of Holy WritMay with fit reverence be applied — that peaceWhich passeth understanding, that reposeIn moral judgments which from this pure sourceMust come, or will by man be sought in vain.

Oh! who is he that hath his whole life longPreserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself?For this alone is genuine liberty:Where is the favoured being who hath heldThat course unchecked, unerring, and untired,In one perpetual progress smooth and bright? — 135A humbler destiny have we retraced,And told of lapse and hesitating choice,And backward wanderings along thorny ways:Yet — compassed round by mountain solitudes,Within whose solemn temple I receivedMy earliest visitations, careless thenOf what was given me; and which now I range,A meditative, oft a suffering man —Do I declare — in accents which, from truthDeriving cheerful confidence, shall blendTheir modulation with these vocal streams —That, whatsoever falls my better mind,Revolving with the accidents of life,May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled,Never did I, in quest of right and wrong,Tamper with conscience from a private aim;Nor was in any public hope the dupeOf selfish passions; nor did ever yieldWilfully to mean cares or low pursuits,But shrunk with apprehensive jealousyFrom every combination which might aidThe tendency, too potent in itself,Of use and custom to bow down the soulUnder a growing weight of vulgar sense,And substitute a universe of deathFor that which moves with light and life informed,Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends,Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,In presence of sublime or beautiful forms,With the adverse principles of pain and joy —Evil, as one is rashly named by menWho know not what they speak. By love subsistsAll lasting grandeur, by pervading love;That gone, we are as dust. — Behold the fieldsIn balmy spring-time full of rising flowersAnd joyous creatures; see that pair, the lambAnd the lamb's mother, and their tender waysShall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love,And not inaptly so, for love it is,Far as it carries thee. In some green bowerRest, and be not alone, but have thou thereThe One who is thy choice of all the world:There linger, listening, gazing, with delightImpassioned, but delight how pitiable!Unless this love by a still higher loveBe hallowed, love that breathes not without awe;Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul,Lifted, in union with the purest, best,Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praiseBearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.

This spiritual Love acts not nor can existWithout Imagination, which, in truth,Is but another name for absolute powerAnd clearest insight, amplitude of mind,And Reason in her most exalted mood.This faculty hath been the feeding sourceOf our long labour: we have traced the streamFrom the blind cavern whence is faintly heardIts natal murmur; followed it to lightAnd open day; accompanied its courseAmong the ways of Nature, for a timeLost sight of it bewildered and engulphed:Then given it greeting as it rose once moreIn strength, reflecting from its placid breastThe works of man and face of human life;And lastly, from its progress have we drawnFaith in life endless, the sustaining thoughtOf human Being, Eternity, and God.

Imagination having been our theme,So also hath that intellectual Love,For they are each in each, and cannot standDividually. — Here must thou be, O Man!Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:No other can divide with thee this work:No secondary hand can interveneTo fashion this ability; 'tis thine,The prime and vital principle is thineIn the recesses of thy nature, farFrom any reach of outward fellowship,Else is not thine at all. But joy to him,Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laidHere, the foundation of his future years!For all that friendship, all that love can do,All that a darling countenance can lookOr dear voice utter, to complete the man,Perfect him, made imperfect in himself,All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risenUp to the height of feeling intellectShall want no humbler tenderness; his heartBe tender as a nursing mother's heart;Of female softness shall his life be full,Of humble cares and delicate desires,Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.

Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewherePoured out for all the early tendernessWhich I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most trueThat later seasons owed to thee no less;For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touchOf kindred hands that opened out the springsOf genial thought in childhood, and in spiteOf all that unassisted I had markedIn life or nature of those charms minuteThat win their way into the heart by stealth(Still to the very going-out of youth),I too exclusively esteemed _that_ love,And sought _that_ beauty, which, as Milton sings,Hath terror in it. Thou didst soften downThis over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend!My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stoodIn her original self too confident,Retained too long a countenance severe;A rock with torrents roaring, with the cloudsFamiliar, and a favourite of the stars:But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers,Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze,And teach the little birds to build their nestsAnd warble in its chambers. At a timeWhen Nature, destined to remain so longForemost in my affections, had fallen backInto a second place, pleased to becomeA handmaid to a nobler than herself,When every day brought with it some new senseOf exquisite regard for common things,And all the earth was budding with these giftsOf more refined humanity, thy breath,Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler springThat went before my steps. Thereafter cameOne whom with thee friendship had early paired;She came, no more a phantom to adornA moment, but an inmate of the heart,And yet a spirit, there for me enshrinedTo penetrate the lofty and the low;Even as one essence of pervading lightShines, in the brightest of ten thousand stars,And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lampCouched in the dewy grass. With such a theme,Coleridge! with this my argument, of theeShall I be silent? O capacious Soul!Placed on this earth to love and understand,And from thy presence shed the light of love,Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of?Thy kindred influence to my heart of heartsDid also find its way. Thus fear relaxedHer over-weening grasp; thus thoughts and thingsIn the self-haunting spirit learned to takeMore rational proportions; mystery,The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,Of life and death, time and eternity,Admitted more habitually a mildInterposition — a serene delightIn closelier gathering cares, such as becomeA human creature, howsoe'er endowed,Poet, or destined for a humbler name;And so the deep enthusiastic joy,The rapture of the hallelujah sentFrom all that breathes and is, was chastened, stemmedAnd balanced by pathetic truth, by trustIn hopeful reason, leaning on the stayOf Providence; and in reverence for duty,Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and thereStrewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs,At every season green, sweet at all hours.